Wireless communication systems of various kinds are known in the art. Most such systems must provide at least some nominal level of quality-of-service with respect to supported wireless communications in order to provide effective communications. There are numerous circumstances and events, however, that will impair quality-of-service and hence potentially degrade a system's ability to deliver required services.
Some systems are of simple enough design and operation to permit relatively modest actions to preserve or protect a given quality-of-service level. In many cases, however, significant problems in this regard can occur. In many cases quality-of-service can be similarly impaired by a wide variety of potential causes. This can make identification of a specific actual cause more difficult. It then follows, of course, that it can be more problematic to resolve a given quality-of-service issue when the cause itself eludes identification.
Wireless communication systems comprising, in whole or in part, a wireless local area network (WLAN) (such as a network that is based upon any of the 802.11 family of wireless local area network standards) are an example of such a problem. A WLAN as operated by a given enterprise (such as a multi-floor building or multi-campus business or other organization) that supports so-called Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) in particular requires both a relatively high quality-of-service and presents significant challenges to quickly and accurately locating a specific problem when one arises. For example, an element manager for such a system may (or may not) have data that suggests unacceptable user experiences, but will lack the data to permit a useful system diagnosis to address the underlying cause and/or source of that problem.